Now that we know beyond any reasonable doubt that the right-wing of this country is working hand in hand with Russia to destroy America I think we can safely tie anything about Russian undermining us to the Republican Party. Here we find that the fake Twitter attacks are vastly broader than thought.

Quote

Twitter underestimated the number of accounts spreading Russian propaganda by more than ten thousand, the company quietly disclosed late Friday.

A company spokesperson wrote on the Twitter blog that 50,258 automated accounts “identified as Russian-linked” had tweeted “election-related content during the election period.”

Twitter will individually email each of the 677,775 people who followed or retweeted a compromised account operated by or set to retweet posts from the Russian “troll farm” known at the time as the Internet Research Agency (IRA), the company said. The IRA was reportedly operating on orders from the Russian government.

Twitter’s initial report issued in September relied on a separate assessment by Facebook. It examined Facebook’s 450 compromised users and identified only 179 accounts in its initial assessment. Lawyers for both companies and Google endured public tongue-lashings by committees of both the House and the Senate last fall, who accused them f not doing enough to protect Americans from foreign propaganda.

An intelligence community assessment issued shortly before President Donald Trump’s inauguration said that Russian efforts to influence the election demonstrated a clear preference for Trump over Clinton, and included a multi-pronged disinformation effort across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Russia’s own state news service Russia Today, which made overtures to American political figures during the period. What effect the Russian-backed digital propaganda campaign had on the election has been hard to quantify.

Twitter also included a selection of imagery tweeted by the allegedly Kremlin-controlled Twitter feeds in its post. One image called for the arrest of George Soros, the founder of the progressive Open Society Foundation. Another showed a man in a t-shirt reading “Obama called me Clinger/ Hillary calls me Deplorable/ Terrorists call me Infidel/ Trump calls me AMERICAN”.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

Josh Marshall on the current Republican deployment of The Big Lie. This is what's left of the once conservative party.

Quote

The biggest impact of the Nunes Memo – and the accompanying wave of propaganda – is that conventional news and commentary is incapable of handling willful lying in the public sphere. This is a pattern we’ve seen again and again. It’s one of the hallmarks of this political age. It’s worth saying it again: conventional media is not equipped to deal with willful lying in the public sphere.

Let’s consider the coverage of the Nunes Memo.

It’s fair to say that most commentary and reporting – outside of Fox and other propaganda-oriented conservative news outlets – has noted that the Nunes Memo picks out one piece of data and excludes all the rest, creating what is at best a highly misleading understanding about what happened with the Carter Page FISA warrant. There’s lot of good reporting on this. If you read widely you can get a fairly clear understanding of the situation, especially if you read the day after reporting which has pointed out how many of the Memo’s specific claims are not just misleading but expressly false. Still, however, you hear sensible people stating that the Memo’s claims were overstated, that the overall picture is a mix of both sides arguments, that the GOP argument about politicization is overstated, etc.

Listen to Chris Cillizza a few moments ago on CNN …

Quote

I think ultimately – I’m actually with [former Trump advisor Jason Miller] in that – I don’t know that either of these [memos] are the smoking gun that either side wanted. I know conservatives insist the Nunes memo – I shouldn’t lump them together – some conservatives think the Nunes memo, now that it has been released, proves once and for all that everything is totally fine and that Donald Trump is exonerated. I don’t think that’s so. I don’t think the Schiff memo is going to say, oh, my gosh, here it is, the smoking gun we have been waiting for.

Cillizza is one example. The upshot of the press coverage is that the Nunes Memo was likely overstated and political. But the idea that bias or anti-Trump animus helped drive the Russia probe remains as a reasonable viewpoint that needs to be accorded some respect amidst the clutter of conflicting claims and reports.

The reality is different.

This is actually quite black and white. There’s no evidence of politicized intelligence or law enforcement or counter-intelligence work at all. Actually not any. All the evidence is based on false claims, logical fallacies or intentionally misleading representations of how standard law enforcement procedures work. There’s also a high brow version of this which redirects the conversation toward longstanding and legitimate concerns about whether the FISA system is consistent with the rule of law in the first place. This is a grave error which only confuses the situation and makes general considerations about the rule of law into a tool of someone trying to trample on it.

And they're virtually all in now. Sure a few have spoken up but generally they are either actively complicit or silent.

Quote

This all brings us back to the essential point. We don’t yet know what if anything Donald Trump is guilty of. We largely know on the obstruction front. The “collusion” front is much less clear. But all the evidence we have suggests a professional and if anything quite cautious investigation, one run from first to last by Republicans and on critical fronts by Donald Trump’s own nominees and appointees. The entirety of the “Deep State” anti-Trump bias storyline is no more than fakery and lies designed to cover up Trump’s misdeeds. It’s an effort that every member of the Republican party, up to its highest leaders like Paul Ryan, have made themselves party to. Yet none of it amounts to more than a big lie, The Big Lie. It’s just something repeated over and over to give it an appearance of verisimilitude even though it’s simply a lie concocted to defend President Trump at any cost.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

We need our Nuremberg, the post-1945 flavor. Pray we get to somehow skip the 1939/45 part.

I really am beginning to worry that we may be in for a new Reign of Terror.

Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

According to Rex Tillerson (of all people) the Russians are already at it again for the 2018 elections. Hell, they probably never even stopped. Meanwhile Trump continues bending over for Putin.

Quote

During his trip to Latin America Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Fox News that U.S. officials are already seeing signs of Russia attempting to interfere in the 2018 midterm elections.

And there’s not a whole lot the U.S. can do to stop it, he said.

“I don’t know if I would say we are better prepared because the Russians will adapt as well,” Tillerson told Fox News Tuesday. “If the point is, if it’s their intention to interfere, they’re going to find ways to do that. We can take the steps we can take, but this is something that once they decide they are going to do it, it’s very difficult to preempt it.”

Despite that assessment from his State Department chief, President Donald Trump last week refused to implement new congressionally-approved sanctions against the foreign power. The White House claimed the threat of sanctions was enough to serve as a deterrent.

The White House did comply with one demand from Congress by releasing a list of 114 Russian politicians and 96 “oligarchs” who have grown in power under Russian President Vladimir Putin. In response Putin called the list “hostile.”

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

According to Rex Tillerson (of all people) the Russians are already at it again for the 2018 elections. Hell, they probably never even stopped. Meanwhile Trump continues bending over for Putin.

“I don’t know if I would say we are better prepared because the Russians will adapt as well,” Tillerson told Fox News Tuesday. “If the point is, if it’s their intention to interfere, they’re going to find ways to do that. We can take the steps we can take, but this is something that once they decide they are going to do it, it’s very difficult to preempt it.”

If he was talking about Mexico and drug-carrying immigrant criminal rapists, we know what the answer would be.

"All glory to the HypnoTrump, or else..."

"It all makes sense when you remind yourself that the GOP is no longer a political party but turned into an organized crime family"

"I hope to live long enough that the name Trump is reviled as much as the name Hitler or Stalin"

“I don’t know if I would say we are better prepared because the Russians will adapt as well,” Tillerson told Fox News Tuesday. “If the point is, if it’s their intention to interfere, they’re going to find ways to do that. We can take the steps we can take, but this is something that once they decide they are going to do it, it’s very difficult to preempt it.”

I think he means that we're helpless and there's no point in resisting. Tillerson of Borg?

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO

We're afraid our days are numbered, and our demise is imminent. We've been hacked SIX times since 2016. Facebook does nothing to protect security, but panders to the trolls. We apologize in advance of the death of this page.

Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

I have a FB account that I had to create to participate in a local forum (it was the only method they provided). I've avoided social media up until 2.5 years ago. But I get continually flabbergasted by the tribal and unquestioning allegiance so many Trumpkins show in attacking anyone who questions things. It also scares the hell out of me at their level of reasoning skills and intelligence. It seems every month, the discourse sinks to a new low. It's easy to see why the Hannity's of the world act that way. It fluffs their paymasters. But the general public?

So evidently W made a speech abroad saying that Russia had unquestionably interfered in the 2016 election. And people on FB are attacking Bush as a traitorous libtard who must be bonking Nancy Pelosi.

To me, the sheer descent into lunacy that so much of the country has embraced is worse than the destruction of democracy that Dumpster represents. If I could go back in time to answer Ben Franklin's challenge about whether we could keep our republic, I'd be sorry to report to him that my faith is shaken.

And I could tell him people are lining the streets of Philadelphia today, but it's to cheer the Eagles victory. "What is this football that you speak of, sir?"

"All glory to the HypnoTrump, or else..."

"It all makes sense when you remind yourself that the GOP is no longer a political party but turned into an organized crime family"

"I hope to live long enough that the name Trump is reviled as much as the name Hitler or Stalin"

I have a FB account that I had to create to participate in a local forum (it was the only method they provided). I've avoided social media up until 2.5 years ago. But I get continually flabbergasted by the tribal and unquestioning allegiance so many Trumpkins show in attacking anyone who questions things. It also scares the hell out of me at their level of reasoning skills and intelligence. It seems every month, the discourse sinks to a new low. It's easy to see why the Hannity's of the world act that way. It fluffs their paymasters. But the general public?

So evidently W made a speech abroad saying that Russia had unquestionably interfered in the 2016 election. And people on FB are attacking Bush as a traitorous libtard who must be bonking Nancy Pelosi.

To me, the sheer descent into lunacy that so much of the country has embraced is worse than the destruction of democracy that Dumpster represents. If I could go back in time to answer Ben Franklin's challenge about whether we could keep our republic, I'd be sorry to report to him that my faith is shaken.

And I could tell him people are lining the streets of Philadelphia today, but it's to cheer the Eagles victory. "What is this football that you speak of, sir?"

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

A "Not-Like" Like.

Shame we don't have a "groan of acknowlegment" button. It would fit situations like this one, where we have to accept a reality, even when we don't necessarily "Like" it.

Edited by Bact PhD, 08 February 2018 - 11:13 AM.

Politics these days is show business. Elections are Dancing with the Stars with consequences. ~Rue Bella

(About fame) Living for likes, shares and follows is a form of validation. The question is whether it is also the source of our self esteem. If it is, we’re screwed. And, culturally, it seems as if it’s become more and more our shared value. ... Meringue is no longer a sweet and pretty topping but the body itself. ~Charles Perez

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816. ME 14:384, via LFC, 12/1/2016

Competent people go in one of a few directions. But incompetence is infinite. ~David Brooks, NY Times

The director of national intelligence testified Tuesday that there is no single agency leading the United States’ efforts to respond to and combat Russian election meddling. The revelation came as intel chief Dan Coats also told the Senate intelligence committee that Russia is poised to target the U.S. midterm elections later this year. He warned that Russia will continue to use “propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokespeople, and other means of influence.” CIA Director Mike Pompeo later said “we have seen Russian activity and intentions” to interfere in the midterm elections.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

If the full story of things (money laundering? revocable bank loans? sexual blackmail?) ever makes it out, it's going to be a grim story. And do you think the Hannity's and other Dumpster fluffers will ever admit their duplicity if the likely secrets ever see sunshine? Doubtful.

"All glory to the HypnoTrump, or else..."

"It all makes sense when you remind yourself that the GOP is no longer a political party but turned into an organized crime family"

"I hope to live long enough that the name Trump is reviled as much as the name Hitler or Stalin"

If the full story of things (money laundering? revocable bank loans? sexual blackmail?) ever makes it out, it's going to be a grim story. And do you think the Hannity's and other Dumpster fluffers will ever admit their duplicity if the likely secrets ever see sunshine? Doubtful.

Admit their duplicity? Hell, they'll be calling for the heads of the leakers. You know, people who testified under oath.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

At a Tuesday Senate Intelligence Committee meeting, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) scolded the president — and his appointees — for not responding to Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, saying that without a clear doctrine of deterrence there was no reason for the Kremlin not to continue to interfere in American politics without fear of consequence.

“We cannot confront this threat, which is a serious one, with a whole of government response when the leader of the government continues to deny it exists.” King observed. “We’re trying to fight a global battle with our hands tied behind our back.”

King referred to the opening statement from Director of National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, calling his assessment of the 2016 Kremlin disinformation operation during the U.S. election “stunning.”

“They will work to use cyber operations to achieve strategic objectives unless they face repercussions for their operations,” King summarized. “Right now there are none! Is that not the case? There are no repercussions. We have no doctrine of deterrence. How are we going to get them to stop doing this if all we do is patch our software and try to defend ourselves?”

Trump has been slow to punish Russia, and, without the President on board, King said he has faced backlash from constituents for pushing for Russia to face consequences. “My problem is I talk to people in Maine that say, ‘The whole thing is a witch-hunt and hoax because the president told me.'”

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer